Parlamentarismos y crisis económica: afectación de los encajes constitucionales en Italia y España

The book offers a multi and inter-disciplinary comparative study on how the constitutional balance between executives and legislatures was affected during and after the financial crisis in Italy and Spain. It relies upon doctrinal examinations, constitutional and legislative analysis and empirical data recollected through interviews. Chapter 1 explains the methodology adopted and justifies the selection of the case studies, finally focusing of the relevance of the topic from a comparative European viewpoint. Chapter 2 introduces the changes occurred in the decision-making process at the European level, with respect to the emergence of new main actors (like the ECB or the Economic and Financial Affairs Council configuration - ECOFIN), showing to what extent it has impacted on domestic political systems, in particular on parliaments. The interdependence between the evolution of EU norms - especially the Lisbon Treaty - and the role played by national parliaments is then delved into in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 focuses on law-making at the domestic level, offering novel patterns elucidating the relationship between the two parliaments analyzed and the corresponding executives: a) confirmation of sources of law passed by the executive; b) delegation of normative powers to the executive; c) ratification of norms adopted by the executive outside the national realm. A final all-encompassing pattern is the limited time-span granted for parliamentary decisions. Chapter 5 analyzes how the new European economic governance has affected parliaments, with respect to their tasks within the European Semester, focusing on the new role allotted to, or played in practice by, internal bodies like the budgetary committees. Chapter 6 shifts the focus towards the management of European policies within the two governments, proving that their functions have expanded, favoring particularly the prime ministers and the ministers for economic affairs. The final Chapter offers conclusions complementing the comparative examinations of the previous chapters, elaborating on informality and “executivization” as new features of decision-making, as well as on “economization” of politics, which are contributing to further marginalization of parliaments.